Category Archives: energy education

Finally A Solar Facility In New Jersey – Well the plant is in New Jersey

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The actual facility will be in Jordan but the panels, in the beginning, are made in New Jersey. Once their factory is up and running then America loses out. Now if America just got as serious about solar power plants as the folks in the middle east. Kind of ironic don’t you think?

http://www.solardaily.com/reports/Gigawatt_Scale_PV_Power_Project_Initiated_In_Jordan_999.html

Gigawatt-Scale PV Power Project Initiated In Jordan

by Staff Writers
Amman, Jordan (SPX) Dec 08, 2008

The Al-Husseini Group and Amelio Solar have announced a joint venture to bring large-scale photovoltaic energy production capacity to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in cooperation with the government and the national utility.

The joint venture has launched a multi-year project to construct a one-gigawatt (1GW) photovoltaic power generation plant in Jordan, including an integrated two hundred megawatt (200MW) thin-film photovoltaic module factory that will serve as a dedicated, low-cost source of Amelio Solar thin-film photovoltaic modules to supply the power plant.

The joint venture first will deploy and operate a factory in Jordan to produce thin-film amorphous silicon, CIGS (copper-indium-gallium-diselenide) and related hybrid photovoltaic modules using a manufacturing platform created and installed by Amelio Solar.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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Spanish Solar Facilities Are Cool – They claim the rain in Spain

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falls mainly on the plain. But really it is the sun casting photons from afar that has the biggest impact.

http://www.solarserver.com/solar-magazine/solar-news/current/abengoa-solar-inaugurates-second-generation-high-temperature-solar-power-tower.html

Abengoa Solar inaugurates second-generation high-temperature solar power tower

Abengoa Solar’s (Seville, Spain) first high-temperature power tower, dubbed “Eureka,” was unveiled on June 19th, 2009 by Martín Soler Márquez, Director of Innovation, Science and Enterprise for the Andalusian Regional Government, the company reports in a press release. According to the press release, this power tower is intended to test a new type of receiver on an experimental basis and it is expected that the receiver can achieve the higher temperatures needed for higher-efficiency thermodynamic power cycles. The aim of this new technology is to increase plant performance, thereby reducing generating costs as well as the area of the solar field, Abengoa reports.

The new experimental plant occupies a 16,000-squarefoot portion of the Solúcar Platform and uses 35 heliostats and a 164-foot tower which houses the experimental superheating receiver. The capacity of the experimental plant which features a thermal energy storage system is estimated to be about 2 megawatts (MW).

Solúcar Platform solar thermal and PV installation complex to offset 185,000 tons of CO2 emissions per year.

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Go there and see the pretty picture. More next week.

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Large Solar Facilities In China – As the green clean wars heat up

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I have included a picture here because it is a small one and the plant will not be operational until next year.

http://www.renewablesinternational.net/esolars-chinese-partner-makes-a-successful-bid-for-solar-thermal-project-in-fuxin-city/150/510/30493/

eSolar’s Chinese partner makes a successful bid for solar thermal project in Fuxin City

Just three months ago, California CSP manufacturer eSolar licesed its power tower technology to China’s Pengai Electric – the partnership has born fruit. The partnership has announced its second CSP project in northern China.

 - eSolar's Sierra SunTower in Lancaster, CA has been delivering power to the grid since mid-2009
eSolar’s Sierra SunTower in Lancaster, CA has been delivering power to the grid since mid-2009
Source: eSolar

Shandong Penglai Electric Power Equipment Manufacturing (SPEPEMC), the Chinese partner company of Pasadena power tower developer eSolar, signed a cooperation agreement in mid-March with the City of Fuxin, Liaoning Province to build the Fuxin Solar Thermal Power Project. Pengai Electric will build the plant in three phases. When complete the solar thermal power station will have a generation capacity of 300 MW. The Fuxin project is the second for Penglai Electric since the privately-owned power company signed a licensing agreement with California company eSolar last January. Under the terms of the agreement, the Chinese company comitted to building 2 GW of solar thermal power stations in China by 2021 using eSolar’s power-tower technology. The first plant slated for construction is a 92 MW CSP plant to be located at the 66-square-mile Yulin Energy Park in the Mongolian desert.

In eSolar’s power towers, flat mirrors focused on two recievers at the top of a tower heat water directly to produce steam and drive the plant’s turbine. The Chinese plants will combine the eSolar technology with biomass-fired power plants to produce electricity in poor weather conditions and after sundown.

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Go there and see. More tomorrow.

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I Keep Trying To Post Solar Facilities – But life gets in the way

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I Keep trying to put posts about large solar facilities up here in one meditation, but then I see something really interesting and I want to post it before I forget it. In this case it is related however.

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/ngreene/first_us_tidal_power_project_l.html

Nathanael Greene’s Blog

First U.S. Tidal Power Project Readies for Launch in Maine

Posted July 24, 2012 in Solving Global Warming

The ocean is a tremendous bank of energy. Covering more than two-thirds of our planet, the amount of energy embodied in the ocean’s tides, currents, and waves, not to mention temperature and salinity gradients, could power the world—if we were able to commercialize the technology to harness its renewable power.

While technologies harnessing energy from tides and currents have been domestically discussed for decades, no project has ever reached commercial development, and been connected to the grid in the United States. In Eastport, Maine, however, that changed today that will change around mid-August with the launch of the Ocean Renewable Power Company (ORPC) TidGen Cobscook Bay tidal energy project. Harnessing the power of the massive tidal shifts in Cobscook Bay, an inlet connected to the much larger Bay of Fundy, the project is the first in the U.S. to receive a FERC license, negotiate a power purchase agreement, and install and operate a power-producing tidal generator.

As clean energy advocates, we are excited to highlight new, innovative projects that inject clean power and jobs into communities, deploy American ingenuity and know-how and utilize smart clean energy policies. The DOE invested $10 million in the project as part of its larger water power program that aims to better understand the environmental impacts that come with harnessing ocean energy, as well as refine, and make more cost-effective, the technologies that do so.

In addition to harnessing local sources of energy, the project apparently:

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Go there and read. Back to solar tomorrow I hope.

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I Love The Way Large Solar Facilities Look From The Sky – This one is kinda square

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This was proposed in 2009 so I imagine it is operational by now. I found this amazing document that I need to look at more, but it is a listing of all the large solar facilities maybe in the world? Anyway if you want to see cool photos go to the site because pictures are a pain.

http://www.energy.ca.gov/sitingcases/abengoa/

General Description of Project

On August 10, 2009, Abengoa Solar Inc., the sole member of Mojave Solar LLC, filed an Application For Certification (AFC) for its Abengoa Mojave Solar Project. The proposed project is a nominal 250 megawatt (MW) solar electric generating facility to be located near Harper Dry Lake in an unincorporated area of San Bernardino County. The project would be located approximately halfway between Barstow, CA and Kramer Junction, CA, and is approximately nine miles northwest of Hinkley, CA.

The project will implement well-established parabolic trough technology to solar heat a heat transfer fluid (HTF). This hot HTF will generate steam in solar steam generators, which will expand through a steam turbine generator to produce electrical power from twin, independently-operable solar fields, each feeding a 125-MW power island. The sun will provide 100 percent of the power supplied to the project through solar-thermal collectors; no supplementary fossil-based energy source (like natural gas) is proposed for electrical power production.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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OK Back To The Solar Installments Around The World – Just a brief stop Friday

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Now that we know that humans are going to be in pretty bad shape because of climate change, let’s go back to the meditation on what could have saved us if we would have started building them sooner. Large Solar Power Plants. I am not posting any pretty pictures, just the test.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39836641/ns/us_news-environment/t/worlds-largest-solar-plant-gets-us-ok/#.UA2duaCkNyU

World’s largest solar plant gets U.S. OK

$6 billion project in Calif. aims to power at least 300,000 homes

msnbc.com staff and news service reports

updated 10/25/2010 6:07:03 PM ET

WASHINGTON — Calling it a major milestone, the Obama administration on Monday approved what investors say will be the world’s largest concentrated solar power plant and one that more than doubles all of U.S. solar output and can power at least 300,000 homes.

The project in the Mojave Desert near Blythe, Calif., is the sixth solar venture authorized on federal lands within the last month. All are in desert areas.

“The Blythe Solar Power Project is a major milestone in our nation’s renewable energy economy and shows that the United States intends to compete and lead in the technologies of the future,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in announcing the approval.

Construction on the $6 billion plant is expected to start by the end of 2010, with production starting in 2013. Developer Solar Millennium, a company based in Germany, says the plant will generate 1,066 construction jobs and 295 permanent jobs.

The project had run into opposition by some environmentalists due to wildlife concerns.

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Go there see the pictures and read. More tomorrow.

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China Hops On Australian Solar Market – Sad to say but it could have been America

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This is what the corporate suits missed about government support for solar and wind. They create things that other people want and good paying jobs as well.

http://www.hydrogenfuelnews.com/australia-poised-to-take-the-lead-in-solar-energy-market/854766/

Australia poised to take the lead in solar energy market

– July 16, 2012

Yingli Green Energy notes the solar energy potential of the country

Over the past decade, Australia has shown modest support for alternative energy. In recent years, this support has been growing at a rapid pace, with the country now showing major interest in solar energy. Because of Australia’s exposure to solar radiation, it is one of the most attractive locations in terms of a solar energy market. Yingli Green Energy, a Chinese solar panel manufacturer, believes that the potential for solar energy in Australia is so high that it may become the leader of the photovoltaic mass market by the end of the year.

Australia could benefit from Chinese manufactured solar technologies

Solar energy has been growing in strength all over the world. Demand for solar energy systems is growing amongst consumers who wish to see savings of their energy bills as well as help the environment. As demand for solar energy systems rises, so too does the supply of these energy systems. China has played a large role in the growing availability of solar energy systems. The country has thrown its manufacturing might behind the production of solar panels and other technologies, inundating the mass market with products that are driving down the price of solar energy systems.

Company expects solar energy market prospects to be extraordinary

Yingli Green Energy is one of the three largest solar panel manufacturers in China, as well as the rest of the world. Though the company has a small presence in Australia, it claims that the country could become a world leader in terms of solar energy in the coming years. The company expects Australia to see major progress in the solar energy market by the end of the year, with its prospects becoming “quite extraordinary” in 2014 and 2015.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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How Many Ways Can You Get Aternative Energy Wrong – Americans will always think of something

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Got no more to say than the title. This is some really dumb stuff.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204012004577072470158115782.html

The Cellulosic Ethanol Debacle

Congress mandated purchase of 250 million gallons in 2011. Actual production: 6.6 million.

‘We’ll fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but from wood chips and stalks or switch grass. Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years.”

—George W. Bush, 2006 State of the Union address

Years before the Obama Administration dumped $70 billion into solar and wind energy and battery operated cars, and long before anyone heard of Solyndra, President Bush launched his own version of a green energy revolution. The future he saw was biofuels. In addition to showering billions of dollars on corn ethanol, Mr. Bush assured the nation that by 2012 cars and trucks could be powered by cellulosic fuels from switch grass and other plant life.

To launch this wonder-fuel industry, the feds under Mr. Bush and President Obama have pumped at least $1.5 billion of grants and loan subsidies to fledgling producers. Mr. Bush signed an energy bill in 2007 that established a tax credit of $1.01 per gallon produced.

Most important, the Nancy Pelosi Congress passed and Mr. Bush signed a law imposing mandates on oil companies to blend cellulosic fuel into conventional gasoline. This guaranteed producers a market. In 2010 the mandate was 100 million barrels, rising to 250 million in 2011 and 500 million in 2012. By the end of this decade the requirements leap to 10.5 billion gallons a year.

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Go there and read as long as you can bare it. More tomorrow.

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Oil Stocks By Mike Nadel – Good advice from a good guy

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I do not normally boost someone else’s net contributions just because I think the author is cool. Had he not written about oil stocks I probably wouldn’t either, but it is the summer. Because I was getting alittle burnt out on all the serious blogging I have done for 5 years, I gave myself permission to post whatever I wanted too and boringly I have stuck to energy conservation, the residential market and all things environmental. So today is a really “what the hell” kinda day. Enjoy.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/708101-time-to-slide-into-oil-stocks

Time To Slide Into Oil Stocks

??By Mike Nadel

The last time I filled my car’s tank, I paid less than $3 a gallon. As my wife will attest, I was more than a little giddy. “Two-ninety-seven!?!? You gotta be kidding me!!! This is incredible!!!” Hey, we all have to find life’s little thrills wherever we can, right?

The price of crude oil, the source of gasoline, is determined by numerous factors: supply and demand, the Middle East unrest, natural and unnatural disasters, Wall Street speculators, economies in the U.S., Europe and emerging markets, etc.

Crude oil reached $110 per barrel on February 24 and was still over $100 per barrel two months later. It has been on a fairly steady decline since, hitting $80 per barrel on June 22 – its lowest level in two years – before rebounding into the mid-80s. So what’s next?

I certainly am no oil-price-trend expert… and even if I were, I wouldn’t listen to myself. Wasn’t it just a few months ago that alleged experts were predicting $5 gas by Memorial Day and maybe even $6 by the Fourth of July? Still, when it comes to forecasting oil prices, “Up” usually is a reasonable guess – especially after it has been down.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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Is Tidal Energy Coming – According to this the answer is yes

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Tapping The Source: The Power Of The Oceans

Posted by Big Gav in , , , , , ,

Last year I came across the story of Dutch company Kema and their energy island idea – basically a variant on the usual pumped hydro energy storage concept where water is pumped out of a space below sea level then allowed to flow back in, generating power as it does. The “island” uses wind power to pump water out of the enclosed area. An obvious extension to this idea would be to harness ocean energy as well – letting wave and/or tidal power supplement the output of the wind turbines. An attraction of this concept is that it potentially allows a large amount of new energy storage to be brought online – and this storage would be along the world’s coastlines, where most of the population lives.


Another form of energy island has been in the news recently, this one a substantially more ambitious proposal which envisions artificial islands to collect wind, wave, ocean current and solar power in the tropics, along with a more unusual energy source – harnessing the difference in water temperatures between the warm surface and the cold depths using a technique called OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion). These islands are being proposed by architects Dominic Michaelis and his son Alex Michaelin as a response to Richard Branson’s Virgin Earth Challenge, which offers $25 million in prizes for innovative solutions for combating global warming.

While the practicality of these particular proposals has yet to be put to the test, the various forms of ocean power are probably the most overlooked of the big 6 renewable energy sources (along with solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and hydro).

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Go there and read. More next week.

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